‘They’re drops in ocean of contribution by women’

The Supreme Court on Thursday listed 26 outstanding women Army officers who broke the glass ceiling but ran into an insurmountable “structure created by males for males” in the Army to get disqualified for permanent commission (PC).


A bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and M R Shah said, “Even women officers who have been awarded the prestigious commendation card from the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) have been denied PC.

“As an example, it has been stated that Lt Col Shikha Yadav (as well as several other women officers) have been denied PC though they have been awarded the COAS commendation. Lt Col Tashi Thapliyal was awarded the Vishisht Seva Medal. Several women officers who have served in UN missions overseas have been denied PC. There are women officers who have excelled in national sports events, exemplified by Major Pallavi Sharma who has a proven track record in shooting championships which has been ignored.”


The bench added: “We cite these examples only to reflect the outstanding nature of the service of women Short Service Commission officers. We do so in full recognition of the fact that these instances merely constitute a drop in the ocean of the contribution of women officers in the armed forces.”


Lt Col Anuja Yadav: First woman officer of an engineering regiment. Selected for a UN mission as a military observer. Instructor in College of Military Engineering. In charge of operational works active formation

Lt Col Archana Sood: First woman officer to be posted to 7 Engineer Regiment, Madras Sappers; topper of geographic information officers course. ‘A’ grading in geographic and information and remote sensing course from CDAC Pune in 2004. First woman officer to be posted to Corps of Military Police. Domain knowledge in survey and remote sensing. Served in operational areas, counter insurgency (CI) ops

Lt Col Julee: Trained first batch of women constables for Assam Rifles in 2014-16. Handpicked to train the first batch of women military police jawans who are under training at CMP Centre and School, Bengaluru. Participated in active CI by doing incident-free ROP in Anantnag district during stone-pelting in 2016-17; participated in active ops post Uri attack with unit

Lt Col Gopika Bhati: Only officer to receive GOC-in-C Commendation Card for rendering emergency duties in the Northern Command in 2016. Active participation in Op Cloud Burst (rescued lives of foreign and Indian nationals), Op Parakram, Op Vijay. Represented India in lawn tennis, national level squash player

Lt Col Saras Handa: Only woman officer to be detailed for UAV logisticians’ course in Israel. Participated in Op Vijay and Op Parakram. Included in the IHQ foreign linguistic pool. Participated in marathons in high altitude area (Leh). A polyglot, double masters in microbiology and English, MBA and a bachelor in law. Five field postings, including counter-insurgency and highaltitude areas. Volunteered for Siachen

Lt Col Nisha Rani: Awarded Army Commander’s Commendation Card. Served in ERE with Army Aviation Corps

Lt Col Navneet Khangura: First woman officer posted to an infantry division signal regiment. First woman officer posted to an armoured division signal regiment. First to be selected for UN mission as military observer. Participated in Op Parakram. Domain expertise in cyber security

Lt Col Poonam Sharda: Arms Intelligence Corps; first woman officer who served in CI unit – 21 CIIU Doda under D force, which is equivalent to an RR tenure for intelligence officer. Satellite imagery interpreter for the last eight years. Only woman officer in the Intelligence Corps who are interrogation cadre qualified

Lt Col Preena Verma: First woman officer to be posted with Border Roads Organisation in Corps of Engineers in 2003. Silver medal in first Asian White Water River Rafting Championship in September 2003. Handled law and DV cases of MES throughout 17 years in Corps of Engineers

Vanita Dhaka: First woman officer to top the degree course and get DGEME best allrounder officer trophy. Graduated with gold medal from OTA

Maj Garima Gulati: ‘A’ grade in SODE and MLIT courses. Served in CI area from December 2013 till June 2016. All outstanding ACR for last three years

Lt Col Ritu Srivastava: GoC-in-C Commendation Card. Participated in Op Parakram and Op Rakshak

Lt Col Sonali Singh: First woman officer of HQ 21 Sub Area to be the convoy commander for Pathankot to Leh in 1999. First woman officer to be the officerin-charge of ammunition dump, Valla (Amritsar), during Op Parakram

Major Pallavi Sharma: Participated in Op Parakram. Led the advance party to the forward area during Op Vijay. Selected for AMU (Army Marksmanship Unit). Represented Indian shooting team in Czech Republic and Hannover (2019). Represented Army in over 20 national level championships. Won three gold and two silver medals

Lt Col Mamta Gupta: First woman officer to be posted at selection centre Bengaluru, Kapurthala and INI as psychologist. First woman officer to get gold medal and DGEME allrounder officer trophy in degree course. Twice got a UN mission call

Lt Col (Dr) Kamalpreet Saggi: BE (mechanical) MBA, PhD, TO (psychologist) course. Posted at selection centre Bhopal as psychologist. First woman officer to get gold medal and DGEME allrounder officer trophy in degree course twice got UN mission call

Lt Col Asha Kale: First woman officer to be posted to Jammu & Kashmir in active CI. Deployed in forward areas during Op Vijay and Op Parakram

Lt Col Ipsa Ratha: Participated in Op Parakram. Three tenures in CI (Ops) in Northern Command and one tenure in CI(ops) in northeast. Awarded GoC-in-C Commendation Card

Lt Col Inderjeet Kaur: Served in Strike Corps, Artillery Division. Participated in Op Parakram. Served in Op Rakshak and Op Rhino

Lt Col Navneet Lobana: First woman officer to do a garrison engineer appointment. Got best GE trophy in Central Command. Raised a new unit, GE command test lab, in Udhampur and got an outstanding report for the same

Lt Col Anjali Bisht: Participated in nationals while representing Army team. Army Commander’s Commendation Card

Lt Col Amandeep Aulakh: First woman officer to be posted in Armed Engineering Regiment. Participated in Op Prakaram

Lt Col Manreet: Outstanding ACRs in AE appointments. Officiated as commanding officer in Arunachal Pradesh during Doklam dispute when loads of ammunition was required to be pushed forward to operations location. Participated in Op Parakram, Op Vijay and Op Zafran and various exercises

Lt Col Karuna: Commissioned in the Strike Corps and participated in Op Parakram

Lt Col Preetal Parkhi: Volunteered for RR posting and served in Force Signal Regiment. Served three field tenures in J&K, including one each of RR and high altitude. Presently, single handedly executing landline communications projects of IAF in SWAC

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